Cameron is facing urgent calls from among his own MPs to recall the Commons in order to debate his controversial decision to join with the presidents of the US and France in proclaiming that Colonel Gaddafi has got to be removed.

Anyone reading the media coverage of that declaration would have thought that it was an outright call for immediate regime change in Libya but, while that was certainly the intended message, the detail of the wording was carefully phrased to stay within the narrow confines of what the UN security council has actually allowed.

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